The Lucky Few
by Wishful Thinker
Summary: "Survivors aren't always the strongest; sometimes they're the smartest, but more often simply the luckiest." - Carrie Ryan


Note: In light of certain recent episodes, the lack of Mack fics around here bothered me a bit. I might expand this in the future, but it seemed to stand alone well enough for now. He's a bit challenging to write as we know pretty much nothing about him short of being Addy's arm candy and some sort of (college?) athlete.

I own nothing.

Even in the zombie apocalypse, some days are worse than others. This, Mack knows, is one of those days.

It starts with the tell-tale shuffle and moan combo he knows so well rousing him from a fitful half sleep. The dull throb of his newest wound turns sharp as he crouches atop a long-abandoned sideways trailer to peer over the edge and see what fresh hell is coming now.

The Sister's of Mercy missed his vitals, but the last warning shot grazed his leg. Adrenaline got him this far, far enough away to be out of range and high enough up to chance necessarily unguarded sleep, but close enough to see the compound.

Another moan draws his attention.

It's just dawn now, twilight really. He's just starting to make out defined shapes when it's close enough. A female Z, bloated and tottering vaguely toward him. She's moving like she hasn't seen him yet, and not for the first time he wonders if Zees can smell. It's been days since he could bathe, and he's been bleeding. If they can smell, he's certainly ripe for the finding.

There's movement there, in the browned, bloody mess of a zombie. Too much movement, really, and he squints and analyzes the view from up high. It's getting brighter now, and when the sun breaks the horizon at last he sucks in a breath and retreats hastily back onto the trailer roof.

Well, he thinks, that answers a question he never thought to wonder.

Lying on his back in the growing sun he grips Addy's bat and squeezes his eyes shut, gathering himself, psyching himself up a little.

He can hear the Z scratching lightly at the side of the trailer just below his head. From too much experience he knows just what she's doing now, hands feeling around, head probably tilted up in that mindless, endless searching way they have. If she can't smell him then there must be something, because she knows where he is, and he's positive she hasn't actually seen him. It's like magnets sometimes, the way they always find you.

An old pop culture line floats through his head, in a forgotten character voice. _Magnets, how do they work?_ He couldn't place that reference if his life depended on it. But really, his life depends on a lot of things.

The scratching sound continues, a little louder now, this Z is getting amped up. Silently, lips forming the words, he counts to three and then rolls, swinging the bat down to pike the Z. It's smooth, practiced really, even with the dragging leg.

She goes down easily, a quiet thump-thump, and he's hanging over the edge for a moment, watching and checking. He knows it's a solid shot, but a little caution has kept him alive this long. It's a minute before he can hear the gurgling, and see the twitch.

"Fuck."

He lets his head thump on the metal trailer, just once. He tries to stay optimistic, he really does.

Lolling his head to the side he checks for other zees. It's flat out here, and quiet. Safe enough, as far as that goes.

He rolls his legs around and gingerly drops down to the ground a few feet from the twitching zee. It's not a great angle, but he's sure as shit not flipping her over. The bloat is extreme on this one, probably been dead a couple months, maybe in water somewhere. He considers just leaving her. This is a mental image he didn't need. Then again, that's what most images are these days.

The twitching is localized now, center of the back, and he waits until the bones start to audibly pop and the faded plaid shirt starts to rise.

A swift blow of Addy's bat goes deep. Like slapping a pudding. It splashes his face, and he's glad he kept his mouth shut at least.

He cleans the bat off roughly against the ground, mentally deciding to never, ever tell Addy this one. He's always sort of figured she's the kind to want kids some day. If they ever get to some day. Baby zees are a reality they haven't faced up close in years, and fetal ones? Even in the apocalypse that's something else.

A few yards away he sits and checks the rough bandage on his outer thigh, seeing the day's movements have caused a slow trickle of blood to form. It doesn't seem infected yet, but it's only a matter of time if he stays out here in this veritable wasteland.

The bandage pulls a bit at the scabbing, so he lays it back gently, trying not to tear the clots any more than they already are. It's humid out already, despite the early hour. But the dampness at least helps hold the material in place. He thinks idly that with a start like this one, it's going to be a shitty day, all round.

The thought that he can't get out of his head though, the idle thought that he knows already will haunt his sleep for weeks with full technicolor imaginings of this zee, at least until some new horror replaces it, is this:

Who died first?

Collapsed back on the ground and starring up at the sky, he tries to silence his mind. Back at Camp Blue Sky they'd do this sometimes, a sort of group morale meditation thing. He's never been one to meditate, not really, but the quiet was always sort of nice. And sometimes, on cloudier days the younger kids would whisper to each other about cloud shapes.

He'd try to guess which ones they were looking at. Without an artistic bone in his body, he never really saw what they did. The clouds all just looked sort of blobby, really, but the clean whites and bright blues were always a better sight than anything ground level.

Now as he gazes up, ignoring the knowledge that all those kids are dead now, just like the pregnant woman and her baby laying putrid not 30 feet from him, he tries to find some shapes. The clouds are distinct today, bold white shapes on a sharp blue background. Religious painting clouds, he thinks. The kind that should have a beam of light and maybe a hand reaching down through them.

Thunderheads, maybe. The survivalist ingrained in him lodges that thought away. Shelter may be needed.

He doesn't see anything in the clouds but the potential for a storm though. No teddy bears or roaring lions. No daisies or dragons. One, sort of above and to the left, looks a bit chunky, with rounded edges that remind him of the insides of a rather obese man he saw months ago. He'd taken something sharp to the gut, and been sliced open. Hadn't let it slow him down though.

Mack frowns. Oh how he'd fail a Rorschach test.

He's thinking of this now, of psychiatry in a post-z world, when a new shape catches his eye. Incongruous though it is, it stands out starkly against the organic curves of the clouds. Straight, white, and moving, it looks like a plane for all of five seconds.

A missile. Or a rocket, maybe, whatever the fucking difference is. It could be a nuke for all he can tell, but it's bad, whatever level of bad doesn't matter so much. It's high up though, moving fast but aimed at something far, far away.

Out of the corner of his eye he spots another one.

In the early days they'd actively feared things like this. Now, he just watches.

Here, on the ground and bleeding a little, locked outside a sanctuary his gender is barring him from, starring up at missiles or rockets or whatever going to far off places, there's not much to do besides wait and see if he gets blown up.

Worse, he's out of water.

It's just one of those days, and the sun is barely even up.


End file.
